New Member looking for server/budget build for Email Archiving

[alex1002]

Good Day read forum members,
I am new herel found this amazing forum on google. Lots of smart people here and need your help. My place of work finally approved my Licence for 50 users on metalogix archive store to archive emails from exchange.
Microsoft Exchange Email Archiving Solution
Now since I am on a very tight budget I need help here. I can spend max $1000 for the server build. Either use some used or all new combination when it comes to parts.

Do I need ECC RAM? Do I need XEON CPU? Do I need Enterprise hard drives? Do I need redundant power supplies. All very hard questions to answer in my mind.

Min 16GB Ram
Min 1TB Storage Raid 1 or Raid10 Preffered

I was looking at some single xeon cpus and Tyan motherboard for rock stable system. I am also having hard time choosing hard drives here. Since ill be using raid 10 do I really need Enterprise drives. My personal experience with WD green is been horrible, then Segeate regular non enterprise also very bad. I see lots of good things about on Hitachi hard drives on these forums.

Can you guys provide feedback on this part selection. I am in Canada and a lot of the Dell outlet and ebay dont ship here or shipping kills of the deal. Maybe a 4 Core Xeon, 16GB ram, motherboard, case.

1x Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 69W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80637E31230V2

$239.99
1x X9SCM-iiF LGA 1155 Intel C204 Micro ATX Intel Xeon E3 Server Motherboard

$204.99

RAM
Kingston 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1333 Server Memory Model KVR1333D3E9SK2/16G $142.99

NORCO RPC-230 2U Rackmount Server Case 1 External 5.25" Drive Bays - OEM Cute little case, fits 4 internal 3.5 drives, matx.

Western Digital WD RE4 WD1003FBYX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Enterprise Hard Drive -Bare Drive x4 $129.99 for my Raid10.

End of story? or can I do better?

Cheers
-AA

 

[MiniKnight]

Do you need that much storage space for 50 users? What about using 2x large disks as your backup and caching hot data on a ssd?

 

[korban]

For the server, we love C6100 in sale here at 799$ The Server Store

Check a review on this site : Dell PowerEdge C6100 XS23-TY3 Cloud Server - 2U 4 Node 8 Sockets - STH

Take a look at the forum for user experience. The whole STH infrastructure is running on C6100

 

[dba]

Knowing that email archiving with de-duplication requires moderate processing power (for the de-duplication process), moderate IO (moving data around), and possibly a bit more than moderate IOPS (you'll be moving around lots of email messages), I'd do the following:

1) Ask the vendor

and/or:

1) Use a single CPU, 4 cores should be enough - or six if you have the budget. Low end Xeon with PCIe3 would be my preferred choice, but a used Xeon 5500 or 5600 would also be OK and less expensive - much less for the 5520s.
2) Always use ECC RAM.
3) Buy a pre-built entry-level 1U server from a good vendor with a next-day warranty OR save money, but with the risk of longer downtimes, by buying used without warranty. Used is OK, but document the risk and gain consensus for it. Redundant power is best, but mail archiving does not warrant extraordinary efforts at uptime, so it's optional. I'd go for a sever with five or more 2.5" drive slots since you would be using SSD drives (see below).
4) Use SSD drives for storage. 50 users times 10GB of email each = 500GB of storage - probably far less with de-duplication. This is tiny. I'd software mirror two Samsung 840 pro or 830 or Intel 520 SSD drives in the 480/512GB size), moving to four drive RAID10 if you run out of space later. For these small data sizes SSDs will give you fantastic response time and throughput with low power consumption and a long lifespan. Software mirroring means low complexity, which is a benefit.

A used Dell c6100 24-bay unit would be great for you. A 12-bay c6100 would be OK for two data drives, but you'd kick youself if it came time expand. A used HP DL160 g7 or Supermicro would also work as an inexpensive choice. Dell probably has an equivalent server as well.

The Dell c6100 approach has the advantage of also giving you three other servers to play with, which is a huge benefit. They are $800 or so, but a two-node unit would be even less. If you do want something really small and cheap, I have a Supermicro 1U 1026T-UF with eight 2.5" disk slots that you can for $150. It has two CPU slots, but the second slot has a bent pin that makes one DIMM slot not work, so consider it a single-CPU box. You'd need to add SATA cables, RAM, and CPU. Xeon 5520s are a steal at $40-50 on eBay. If you like easy, I'll sell the server with its Xeon 5520 for $200. You'd still need to find $60-100 for RAM, $20 for cables, a boot drive, and $800-1,000 for the two SSDs.

I know that the SSD drives break your budget, but they are the key to making your email archiving box great. If you end up using two standard drives instead - even fast SAS drives - you'll end up with a system that feels dramatically slower.

Good Day read forum members,
I am new herel found this amazing forum on google. Lots of smart people here and need your help. My place of work finally approved my Licence for 50 users on metalogix archive store to archive emails from exchange.
Microsoft Exchange Email Archiving Solution
Now since I am on a very tight budget I need help here. I can spend max $1000 for the server build. Either use some used or all new combination when it comes to parts.

Do I need ECC RAM? Do I need XEON CPU? Do I need Enterprise hard drives? Do I need redundant power supplies. All very hard questions to answer in my mind.

Min 16GB Ram
Min 1TB Storage Raid 1 or Raid10 Preffered

I was looking at some single xeon cpus and Tyan motherboard for rock stable system. I am also having hard time choosing hard drives here. Since ill be using raid 10 do I really need Enterprise drives. My personal experience with WD green is been horrible, then Segeate regular non enterprise also very bad. I see lots of good things about on Hitachi hard drives on these forums.

Cheers
-AA

 

[nitrobass24]

Check out Dell Outlet - You can find servers that are much cheaper than new, but still have a warranty. You could probably get a R210 II w/ Xeon E3-1220 & 16gb & 2x 500GB drives for less than 1k. You can always upgrade to SSDs if you can get a little more budget.

 

[alex1002]

Can you guys provide feedback on this part selection. I am in Canada and a lot of the Dell outlet and ebay dont ship here or shipping kills of the deal. Maybe a 4 Core Xeon, 16GB ram, motherboard, case.

1x Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 69W Quad-Core Server Processor BX80637E31230V2

$239.99
1x X9SCM-iiF LGA 1155 Intel C204 Micro ATX Intel Xeon E3 Server Motherboard

$204.99

RAM
Kingston 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1333 Server Memory Model KVR1333D3E9SK2/16G $142.99

NORCO RPC-230 2U Rackmount Server Case 1 External 5.25" Drive Bays - OEM Cute little case, fits 4 internal 3.5 drives, matx.

Western Digital WD RE4 WD1003FBYX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Enterprise Hard Drive -Bare Drive x4 $129.99 for my Raid10.

End of story? or can I do better?

 

[Patrick]

Might suggest the X9SCM-iiF instead. Few dollars more but get a second Intel 82574L NIC.

 

[Mike]

I wouldn't say that the 82574L is what you want, unless you are dead set on Vmwarez, if they still haven't got their driver mess sorted, right?

Proven combination either way.

 

[Patrick]

I wouldn't say that the 82574L is what you want, unless you are dead set on Vmwarez, if they still haven't got their driver mess sorted, right?

Proven combination either way.

Point taken. Even Windows 7 needed an extra driver installation though. The 82574L (to me) is one of those "it just works" and you don't worry about it safety nets.

 

[alex1002]

I feel confused now... The 82574L is good or not. The board I choose doesn't have the intel 82574L second card.

 

[nitrobass24]

82574L is fine.

 

[alex1002]

What other recommendation can you guys make?
I will get the X9SCM-iiF instead of the first board. I found it for cheaper and better CPU combo on newegg.

 

[alex1002]

144 views and no more replies. Did I say something wrong?

 

[MiniKnight]

What else did you need? Seems like question answered

 

[alex1002]

Ive figured out the cpu/ram/motherboard combo. Still need some advice on the storage side. I want to place 4x1tb Western Digitals Enterprise RE4 drives in RAID10. Is this a good idea? Will I suffer i/o problems, etc.

 

[alex1002]

Do you need that much storage space for 50 users? What about using 2x large disks as your backup and caching hot data on a ssd?

These guys are unique when it comes to their email needs. Most users have 20-30gb exchange mailbox, and another 50-70GB in PST. I am worried that I iwll run out space.

 

[Patrick]

Dumb question, but isn't PST stored locally? Would imagine the strategy is to get "cold" e-mails to slower storage and "hot" e-mails on SSDs. Back-up on spindle disks.

Another option is you might be able to create a spindle array then front it with a cache SSD or two.

 

[alex1002]

Dumb question, but isn't PST stored locally? Would imagine the strategy is to get "cold" e-mails to slower storage and "hot" e-mails on SSDs. Back-up on spindle disks.

Another option is you might be able to create a spindle array then front it with a cache SSD or two.

The PSTS will be going into the Archive on the archive server, everything will become hot.

 

[alex1002]

Can anyone recommend me a cheap/near free to use ssd to speed up my spindle based array? Is there any magic?

 

[jtreble]

Alex, dumb question #2. Why have you decided to archive to an on-premises box in the first place? I thought AM now supported cloud-based archiving. Just curious.